The VP160 is going to be a tight fit, but I think I can make it work without major renovation. From stud to stud, I have 30 1/4 inches. From backside of drywall to heat duct rising from furnace, I have about 13 inches. would probably need to frame the outside of wall with 2x2's to gain a couple inches clearance from heating duct. I don't think the area around the duct itself produces much heat, but I'd probably add some insulation to seperate the 2 just in case. Here's some pictures. of where it'd have to go. The VP150 is fairly centered, off by about 1 inch.

There is a floor just under this spot, so building a support under the speaker here presents no problem.

I might purchase one of these, but I'll probably wait until the last day before I place an order. (Marking my calander.) Do you think it'll really make that much of a difference with my 2 pairs of M22 mains and EP350? I can always send it back if I don't notice that big of a difference, I guess. Probably never see one at this $460 price again.

Hmm . . .you should have just a slight clearance to that pipe - tight fit, but a fit! You don't need to worry about the heat affecting the speaker - the heat from a heat duct isn't enough to do any damage to the speaker.

Thanks Amie. The reason I need to wait is I'm having a basement wall being braced from the outside on Jan 3rd. And some pest control for silverfish done on the 6th. That leaves me just a little over what I need for this speaker. If there are no additional expenses by Jan 5th, then I'll call in a pre-order for the in-cabinet version.

I was just wondering how to make a look-alike wood border for the in-cabinet version, like the on-wall speakers have, with the least amount of work and expense.

One idea I have is to use some 2 to 3 inch dowels, 45 degree angle corners. Then sand down the portion where it makes contact with the speaker and with the wall. Then stain a proper wood finish. Then mount the wood to the wall around the opening. Then mount the in-cabinet speaker to the wood (with a brace underneath the speaker from the backside).

Just wondering, when plugging in the numbers for a "custom" finish,in this case "high-gloss black piano", in the pre-order box, the total seems to be based on what would be the regular price and not calculated on the pre-order base price, is that correct?

The design goal for the VP160 was to be a seamless match for M60s. This would seem somewhat straightforward since all the drivers are the same, but because the driver configuration is not identical this means adjustments to the cross-over need to be made to compensate for off-axis variations. To do this we do not really change the cross-over points, but we do adjust the slopes.

Below is a graph showing a comparison of both the listening window response (an average of the curves in a narrow sphere around the forward axis) and the sound power (an average of on-axis and all off-axis measurements).

For the double blind listen testing we used a 3rd M60 to compare to the VP160 to ensure a proper blend across the front was achieved.

How well do you think the VP160 would blend with a VP150 for a over/under screen center channel set up? I love the over/under set up and would prefer to stick with it. I don't have room for a VP160 over my screen, so the VP150 would have to stay and work with a VP160 under the screen. Currently, the VP150 works quite well with 2 M22s - output level is within 1 DB.